Valdelucio Goncalves, who was found alive in a body bag after being declared dead (Image: Matt Roper)

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A grieving brother got the shock of his life after he found his 'dead' sibling "wiggling" inside a zipped-up body bag.

Valdelucio Goncalves, 54, had been declared dead by doctors who claimed he had suffered "respiratory and multiple organ failure".

His family was informed and his body taken to the morgue inside the Menandro de Farias General Hospital in Salvador, northeast Brazil.

The next morning Mr Goncalves' brother Walterio was allowed into the morgue to dress his body ready for his funeral later in the day.

But he got a shock as he approached the body bag, which had been laid on a table top all night.

He told Brazil's G1 website: "We had already made all the arrangements for my brother's funeral.

"All I needed to do was put some new clothes on him, so he'd be ready for the undertaker to come and collect him.

"Workers at the morgue let me in, and showed me where he was lying, in a zipped-up body bag.

"But as I got closer I could see it wriggling. Then he saw it raising and falling as if he was breathing.

"I went crazy and shouted for the medical team, the nurse, so they could see what was happening. They checked him and confirmed that he was still alive."

Mr Goncalves, who is being treated for stomach cancer, was taken to the hospital by his family on Saturday morning when he woke up struggling to breathe.

His niece Patricia Cintra said: "We were worried about him and thought he'd be better off in hospital, that they'd take better care of him that we could at home.

"It was a shock to all of us when they called to tell us he'd passed away. But we started making the funeral arrangements.

"By Sunday morning everything was sorted. We'd paid for his death notice in a newspaper, bought the coffin and booked his funeral.

"His feet had already been tied together and his nose and ears stuffed with cotton wool."

Mr Goncalves was rushed back to the intensive care unit of the same hospital which wrongly declared him dead.

Yesterday, at the request of family members, he was transferred to another hospital, Santo Antonio in Salvador.

In a letter, Mr Goncalves, who cannot speak, wrote that he believed he had been brought back from the dead by Blessed Irma Dulce, a Franciscan Sister who is revered as a saint with miraculous powers in Brazil.

He wrote: "I, Valdelucio, saw death at my feet, but my faith was so great that I was cured.

"Before Irma Dulce I said, do a miracle in me, and she heard my prayer. I saw my mother telling me, son, hold onto her and you will be saved."

The health department for the state of Bahia said today they had opened an inquiry into the blunder.

Margarida Mirando, director of the Meandro de Faria General Hospital, said in a statement that she "will meet with the whole team involved in the patient's care to clarify the chain of events which allowed this to happen."